New immigration rules will cost millions of pounds to the NHS and compromise patient safety, a nurses union has warned.
Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

New immigration rules that will mean lower-earning non-EU workers being deported will exacerbate the shortage of nurses in the UK and cost the NHS tens of millions in recruitment, the government has been warned by nursing leaders.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said the change, due to come into effect in April next year, will cause chaos in the health service. Under the new rules, non-EU workers who are earning less than £35,000 after six years in the UK will be deported.

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The RCN urged the Home Office to add nurses to the list of shortage occupations, exempt from the rules, and reconsider the salary threshold.

Research released by the RCN to coincide with its annual congress in Bournemouth, suggests that up to 3,365 nurses, who cost £20.19m to recruit, could be affected. But it says that figure could spiral by 2020, particularly, if workforce pressures lead to increased international recruitment, in which case 29,755 nurses, costing more than £178.5m to recruit, could be affected.

RCN’s chief executive and general secretary, Dr Peter Carter, said: “The immigration rules for health care workers will cause chaos for the NHS and other care services. At a time when demand is increasing, the UK is perversely making it harder to employ staff from overseas.

“The NHS has spent millions hiring nurses from overseas in order to provide safe staffing levels. These rules will mean that money has just been thrown down the drain.

The only way for the UK to regain control over its own health service workforce is by training more nurses

Dr Peter Carter

“The UK will be sending away nurses who have contributed to the health service for six years. Losing their skills and knowledge and then having to start the cycle again and recruit to replace them is completely illogical.”

The rules, part of home secretary Theresa May’s plan to “ensure that only the brightest and best remain permanently” will apply to all people in the UK from outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

Carter said that overseas recruitment of nurses was likely to continue to rise – although it would be made more difficult as a result of the rule change – because of a crackdown on agency spending and as long as there was a shortage of home-grown people trained to do the job.

In June, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, announced new rules that would introduce a maximum hourly rate that agencies can charge for a stand-in doctor or nurse’s services and would cap the amount any trust in financial trouble can spend on them.

These rules were designed to tackle the NHS’s growing financial problems but Carter said that coupled with the immigration rules, trusts were “being asked to provide safe staffing with both hands tied behind their backs”.

He said an ongoing reliance on overseas recruitment is unreliable and unsustainable, due to growing evidence of a global shortage, but the answer was to expand training.

“The only way for the UK to regain control over its own health service workforce is by training more nurses,” said Carter. “Thirty-seven-thousand potential nursing students were turned away last year, so there are people out there who want to embark on a nursing career.”

A Home Office spokesman said: “As the prime minister has made clear, the government wants to reduce the demand for migrant labour.